| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: is described by the terms harmony, health, order, perfection, and the like.
All things, in as far as they are good, even pleasures, which are for the
most part indefinite, partake of this element. We should be wrong in
attributing to Plato the conception of laws of nature derived from
observation and experiment. And yet he has as intense a conviction as any
modern philosopher that nature does not proceed by chance. But observing
that the wonderful construction of number and figure, which he had within
himself, and which seemed to be prior to himself, explained a part of the
phenomena of the external world, he extended their principles to the whole,
finding in them the true type both of human life and of the order of
nature.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: window and saw a farm servant, mounted and holding a led horse by
the bridle, who told him to make what haste he could and go along
with him; for Marjory was dying, and had sent urgently to fetch him
to her bedside. Will was no horseman, and made so little speed
upon the way that the poor young wife was very near her end before
he arrived. But they had some minutes' talk in private, and he was
present and wept very bitterly while she breathed her last.
CHAPTER III. DEATH
Year after year went away into nothing, with great explosions and
outcries in the cities on the plain: red revolt springing up and
being suppressed in blood, battle swaying hither and thither,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey: "We didn't get out. We went back to the pool where we sent you. The
pack-ponies were there, but you were gone. By George! I was mad, and then I
was just broken up. I was . . . afraid you'd been burned. We weathered the
fire all right, and then rode in to Holston. Now the mystery is where were
you?"
"Then you saved all the ponies?"
"Yes, and brought your outfit in. But, Ken, we--that was awful of us to
forget those poor fellows tied fast in the cabin." Dick looked haggard,
there was a dark gloom in his eyes, and he gulped. Then I knew why he
avoided certain references to the fire. "To be burned alive . . . horrible!
I'll never get over it. It'll haunt me always. Of course we had to save
The Young Forester |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: Tightened the rivets and inscribed his own.
G.J.
EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which
it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural
balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their
once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting
more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step
in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be
ornamenting his neighbor's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a
bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him
after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime the violet and rose
The Devil's Dictionary |
